664 
THE PROPOSED PHARMACY BILL. 
tliat we have systematically and resolutely tried to frustrate all efforts to raise 
the status of the trade, and are creatinij a want of confidence it will take years 
to overcome. Mr. Mills may well say, in apolojjizin^, that his views will be 
considered illiberal. We consider them illiberal and unwise. We need no 
justification for our wishes. Tlie Pharmaceutical Society has attained much, 
we wish it may attain more, nay, the allegiance of every chemist and druggist 
in the kingdom. 
The next point is the unfairness shown by the Council in admitting to the 
highest honours any one who thinks proper to apply for them. As in any 
consolidation of the trade no member can be ostracized from a society under 
whose aegis, if wisdom indeed handles it, the trade reposes, this must 
apply to election on the Council. I believe very exaggerated notions exist 
in the minds of some Chemists as to the number of outsiders who will 
support, by money payment, the Pharmaceutical Society, and thus become 
members. They can only sit on the Cnuncil in the proportion of one-third ; 
I believe they will not number one-tenth. From the opportunities I have had 
of reckoning on this point, I can assert that 5(X), at the utmost, will be the 
number. It may scarcely be invidious to add that they will be our best 
men, appreciate the advantages of business attainments, and with them the 
possession of well-known names in pharmacy will be as powerful as at present 
for election to the Council. 
This advantage of membership, to be claimed only for a limited period, say 
two years, will be for practical purposes a compliment paid to non-pharma¬ 
ceutists. Mr. Mills calculates on a much smaller number, as he intimates, 
that if only the non-contents should retire, the outsiders will not enter in 
numbers sufficient to replace them. 
The last objection is a money objection. I will not do Mr. Mills the un¬ 
kindness to attach much importance to this. The outlay of money is to be 
considered with reference to the return it produces, and if Mr. Mills has ex¬ 
pended £20, he has value received in the knowledge he has gained, to more 
efficiently, and therefore profitably, pursue his calling,— in fact he has educated 
himself for his business, and he could not feel flattered by being ticketed or 
classed merely as a man whose education had cost so much money. Many 
men outside the Pharmaceutical Society have spent more money to learn 
their business than many Pharmaceutical Chemists. Provided his health is 
fully resiored, I must lay myself open to the charge of withholding my con¬ 
dolence from a man who has fallen into a severe illness through excessive 
study. Here again the fruits of study, as of virtue, ever reward its votary, 
I can picture to myself your correspondent restored to health. With a 
mind tutored to think by the study of mathematics, he has the enjoyment of 
the treasures of German and French literature: the advantage of reading 
Telemaque only, in Fenelon’s courtly style, must have paid much off the debt. 
I cannot see Mr. Mills really begrudging fellow-membership to some 
fellow'-tradesmen when he can and they cannot revel in the classics^ Is it 
nothing that the result of excessive study has familiarised his memory with 
the poetry of Homer, the military tactics of Xenophon, and the fervid elo¬ 
quence of Demosthenes ? He can,^and but too many of us cannot, delight in 
the elegant Latinity of Cicero, the orations in Livy, the exuberance of Ovid, the 
terseness of Tacitus, the irony of Juvenal; he can drink deep in the stream 
of the silvery cadence of Virgil’s hexameters. These delights we don’t envy 
him the possession of, they are the fair property of those who strive to 
attain them ; but Mr. Mills must be content with the gifts of such culture 
of mind that a high education only can bestow, and he must not place 
the means to this end in a position they cannot consistently occupy, viz. 
where they will form an impediment to the union of Chemists and Druggists 
by a Pharmacy Act. 
